The Wolf
by sapienlover
Summary: Eliot teaches Lizzie a life lesson, and the rest of the team listens in. Part Five of 'The Redemption of Eliot Spencer' series.


**Author's Note:** As Christian Kane has some Cherokee ancestry, it makes sense for Eliot to be part Cherokee too. This little tale is based on a well-known Cherokee legend.

* * *

The weather was gorgeous this late summer's day. A warm breeze soothed the sun-drenched cliffs of this tiny island off the coast of Crete, the late afternoon sun gleaming on the dark cobalt blue of the Mediterranean Sea. The lonely cry of gulls echoed through the low green hills over the little, private cove of pale sand, and the scent of orange groves mingled with the salty ozone of the sea.

Five-year-old Elizabeth Grace Ford ran barefoot through the foamy waves, feeling the tickle of the shifting sand between her toes and hearing the rippling hiss of the fingers of the sea, and she yelled with pure pleasure as she hurtled along the beach towards her family.

"Look at her," Sophie murmured to Nate as they lay under the deck canopy, taking their ease after a job gone awry. "I hope to god she stays as innocent as this for as long as life will let her."

"Can't keep her innocent forever," Nate replied, wincing at the pull of cracked ribs. "The kind of life we lead? When she can't go to an ordinary school because it makes her a target?"

Lizzie was to be home-schooled, for her own safety and the safety of the team, but Sophie wasn't convinced that Lizzie was missing out. A gregarious, happy child, she made friends easily and she had her family around her at all times … they were her playmates, her friends and her companions during all of the moods of her young life. She would live with it.

Lizzie thumped her way onto the deck, past the coal burner where Eliot had been cooking tender lamb fillets redolent with herbs, lemon and garlic, and slumped down beside Hardison.

She poked him in the ribs as he did his best to ignore his god-daughter's attentions, hiding behind sunglasses as he basked in the warmth. The bruises on his torso certainly welcomed the heat, but not Lizzie's poking.

"Ow," he said.

"Look what I found!" she said loudly, flourishing something under Hardison's nose. "What is it, Alec?"

Hardison sighed and lifted his head from the pillow as he lay on the comfortable recliner. He reached out a hand for Lizzie's treasure and perched his sunglasses on the top of his head. Studying the object, he came to a conclusion.

"It's a tooth, baby-girl," he said. "A big, nasty-lookin' tooth. An' if somethin's nasty-lookin', who do we ask about it?"

Lizzie's face lit up with good humour.

" _Eliot!_ "

A soft " _Dammit_ , Hardison!" crept out from under the straw Stetson covering Eliot's face as he lay sprawled on a beach towel and propped up with cushions, wearing nothing but a pair of cut-off jeans so the sun could ease the aches and pains in his scarred frame. "Why is it when Lizzie finds something ugly an' nasty, I'm the one who has to deal with it?"

"Because you know all about nasty, ugly stuff," Parker quipped, hanging upside-down from the frame built around the deck, her blonde hair sun-bleached and ruffling in the balmy breeze. "It's what Eliots do," she added, grinning.

Eliot let out a grunt of irritation and held out a hand.

"Gimmee," he said to Hardison, who passed the object to the hitter.

Lizzie left Hardison to his own devices, much to the hacker's relief, and tumbled over to Eliot to drop down beside her best friend.

Eliot lifted his hat to look at the tooth, and dumped the Stetson on Lizzie's curly head so he could see more clearly. Turning the tooth over and over in his fingers, he studied it closely. He made his decision.

"Great White," he said definitively.

"A _shark?_ " Lizzie asked, eyes round with wonder as she stared at the object in Eliot's hand. The Stetson was beginning to slide down about her ears but she was too fascinated to care. "How do you know?"

Eliot ran his thumb over the saw-like edge of the tooth. Even though it had been in the water for a long time and the action of the sea had smoothed it slightly, it was still sharp, and he would have to tell Lizzie to be careful with the thing.

"Serrated edge … v-shape … very distinctive." He sat up and positioned the tooth over a small triangular scar in his right calf muscle, one of five lying in a slight arc. "See? Great White. Lots of 'em in the Med. Although I got these from a shark off Capetown in '07."

Hardison's eyes widened.

"You got bit by a shark?"

"A _Great White_ , Hardison. Not just any shark," Eliot snarked. "Tried surfin'. The shark decided to have a taste, we had a conversation about it an' it went away. End of story."

Hardison eyed the scars on Eliot's leg.

"Must've been a teeny-weeny Great White, El … those scars are miniscule, bro!"

Eliot thought about it.

"Yeah, I suppose. It was only about twelve feet long. Not one of the _really_ big ones. Took a chunk outta my board and nicked me." He shrugged. "It just wondered what I was, I guess."

He handed the tooth back to Lizzie, who took it reverently. It would be placed in her box of treasures which she had collected on her travels, alongside her piece of fossilised dinosaur poop, a beautiful filigree bracelet Eliot had bought for her when they were in Sumatra saving tigers, a _millefiori_ paperweight her Daddy had got for her during that job in Venice the previous year when Hardison and Eliot fell into a canal and got sick, and other precious things … memories of special moments with her family.

"Careful, now, 'Lizbeth Grace. It's sharp, okay?" Eliot's blue eyes were serious as he watched her study the tooth with amazement.

Lizzie glanced up at him and nodded. Eliot usually called her 'Lizbeth Grace when something was important.

As Eliot settled back on his pillows and draped a towel over his eyes because he realised he wasn't going to get his Stetson back anytime soon, Lizzie ran her finger over the tooth and glanced at the scars on Eliot's leg. Leaning forward, she placed the tooth once more over a triangular scar. It fit perfectly.

 _Wow_. Eliot had almost been eaten by a _shark_. She thought he was the bravest, toughest, _goodest_ person she knew.

She looked up at Eliot, now relaxing with a sigh back into the pillows, and she perused the well-known scars on his torso. Suddenly she poked at the one in his left shoulder.

" _Dang_ it, Lizzie –" he groused from beneath the towel.

"Tell me about the bear!" she said. She _loved_ hearing about how Eliot had growled at a bear.

Hardison let out a poorly-controlled chortle.

"Leave Eliot alone, dear," Sophie sighed, warm and relaxed and serene on her recliner. Nate huffed a soft snore beside her.

"But Eliot's _good_ at stories!" Lizzie whined, "especially the gory ones!"

"Stop telling my daughter gory stories, Eliot," Sophie said dozily, trying to slip slowly into a light snooze.

"They're _not_ gory …" Eliot muttered, "… much …"

Lizzie, undeterred, picked another scar, this time on his left forearm. She poked it.

"That one," she said.

Eliot sighed.

"Bucharest, 2008. Bad guy with a switchblade."

"Ohhh, I've not heard that story!" Parker said, hair hanging in a curtain as she swung gently in the breeze. Eliot couldn't understand how she could stay upside-down for so long without getting a migraine.

"And you're not _gonna_ hear it, Parker" Eliot growled. Not in front of Lizzie. Well, not until she was at least twenty.

"Awww …" Parker sulked.

Lizzie thought for a few moments, and then she spotted a long, white, faded line along Eliot's ribs, so faint it was almost invisible.

"What about this one?" she asked, gently tracing a finger along the scar, knowing it would tickle. Eliot _hated_ being tickled.

Eliot was silent, but Lizzie saw him tense a little. She thought for a moment that he was trying not to laugh at the tickling, which embarrassed him, but then she realised there was no laughter in her friend. Instead he seemed … _sad_.

"Eliot?" she asked softly. "Did I do something wrong?"

Eliot let out the breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Darwin, Australia. 2006. Knife."

"Australia?" Lizzie gasped, instantly forgetting that Eliot seemed unhappy. "Where the kangaroos come from?"

"Yep," Eliot said, a little forcefully.

"Oooh, did you beat up the bad guys? Why –"

"Lizzie, darling … no more questions, sweetheart. We're all trying to get some rest, so why don't you –" Sophie sensed Eliot's hesitation, but the hitter waved a hand dismissively.

"S'okay, Soph. It was a long time ago." Eliot pulled aside the towel over his eyes, sat up and shifted his body upwards so that he could speak to Lizzie face-to-face. "That was when I was feedin' my bad wolf," he said quietly.

He had never lied to Lizzie. She was intensely curious and very intelligent, and had a lot of her mother's sense of the feelings of others, a talent which Sophie found very useful in her grifting career. But it also meant Lizzie knew when she was being misled, and Eliot had vowed he would always … _always_ … be straight and true with Lizzie, his best girl.

"You had a _wolf?_ " Lizzie said with awe.

Eliot smiled gently and a little sadly. He reached forward and tapped a forefinger against Lizzie's chest, right over her heart.

"We all have wolves, 'Lizbeth Grace. Right here."

Lizzie's eyes became even rounder with astonishment, and she clutched at her chest.

"Me too?"

She was utterly enthralled. How could she have wolves in her chest?

"And Mama? And Daddy? And Alec and Parker?"

Eliot nodded.

"All of us. Everyone in the whole world. Or so my grandfather told me."

Lizzie broke into a delighted smile. Eliot very rarely spoke of his family, but more often than not it was about his grandfather, a man it was obvious he had loved dearly. She knew then, she was going to be treated to an Eliot-story – one with a lesson attached, but enchanting all the same. She settled down to listen.

Eliot gave her his special 'Lizbeth Grace smile, a half-hitch of his mouth that made his laughter-lines appear.

"When I was a little boy … not much older'n you, I guess … maybe seven or eight … I got into trouble at school."

Lizzie's jaw dropped. Eliot _never_ got into _trouble_. She didn't realise that Eliot got into some trouble or another _every damn day_ , usually, but he was never _naughty_. At least, not in Lizzie's eyes.

Parker reached up and eased herself off the overhead frame and dropped elegantly to her feet, where she continued down and sat cross-legged on the deck next to Hardison. Resting her chin on her hands and bracing her elbows on her knees, she settled down for a story. Stories had been hard to come by when she was a child, and they were precious to her.

Sophie gently nudged Nate awake without opening her eyes. Nate awoke with a jerk.

"Wha'?"

"Shhhh …" Sophie whispered. "Listen …"

Hardison didn't move, but his eyes opened behind the dark glasses, and he waited.

"What did you _do?_ " Lizzie asked, mesmerised.

"Dropped a horseshoe on Jimmy Truhicky's head," Eliot said ruefully. "Man, that kid bugged the crap outta my sister, so I took a horseshoe to school an' dropped it on his head when he wasn't lookin'," he added. "I wasn't big enough to punch him. He was eleven … so …" he rolled his shoulder in a half-hitch. "Horseshoe."

Lizzie's eyes bugged out and she took a sharp breath. In her opinion, Jimmy Truhicky _deserved_ the horseshoe on his head.

Hardison grinned, but said nothing.

"So …" Eliot continued, "I got myself into a whole heap of trouble, an' my dad whupped the tar outta my butt for it, even though he raised unholy hell because Jimmy had been pickin' on my sister. I took my sore behind off to the neighbour's barn where I could feel sorry for myself an' groom the horses. Grandfather came lookin' for me."

"Did it hurt?" Lizzie asked breathlessly. "Getting whupped?" She couldn't imagine _ever_ getting whupped.

Eliot grinned.

"Ohhh yeah," he replied. "Grandfather brought me a pack of frozen peas to sit on."

Lizzie grimaced.

"Yuk!"

She hated peas.

"Anyway, Grandfather sat me down on the peas an' told me about the wolves."

Lizzie was now all agog.

"Grandfather … his momma was Cherokee –" Eliot explained.

" _Tsalagihi Ayili_ ," Lizzie whispered, pronouncing the Cherokee name for their people perfectly. She _loved_ hearing about Grandfather.

"That's right," Eliot said approvingly. "The People. An' so … he tapped my chest – just like I did with you – an' he told me I carried two wolves in my heart that battled and fought all the time."

Lizzie sucked in a short, sharp breath.

"What kind of wolves?"

Eliot sobered.

"He said one of the wolves is bad … an evil wolf that is angry an' jealous an' vicious. It hates everything an' everyone, an' it does terrible things just because it can."

Lizzie was shocked. How could Eliot have such a terrible thing in his heart?

"What about the other wolf?" she asked.

"Now _that_ wolf, Grandfather said, is a _good_ wolf. It's kind, an' full of love an' joy, an' it is always humble. It thinks about others, an' it _always_ tells the truth, no matter what."

Lizzie thought for a moment or two.

"So which one wins?" she asked.

Eliot's smile softened.

"The wolf that you feed the most is _always_ the winner," he said.

Lizzie had to ponder that for a little while. Then she thought back to Eliot's comment about feeding his bad wolf. No. That couldn't be right. Eliot had never been bad in his whole life.

"But –"

"I fed my bad wolf for a long time, 'Lizbeth Grace. That was long before you were born, an' I was in a bad place in what I thought was a bad world. But after a while, I realized I had to stop feeding my bad wolf, an' so I needed a place to go to think about it. I was in Australia, tryin' to make sense of some stuff, an' that's when my good wolf began to get stronger and stronger, an' with the help of some good people I learned how to feed it all the right things." He touched the faint scar on his side. "This reminds me how difficult it is to do the right thing, but if you feed your good wolf it helps make it easier."

Lizzie had to think hard about it. Eliot told her he hadn't always been a good person. But the Eliot _she_ knew was kind, and brave and _always_ did the right thing. He helped people, even if he grouched about it and complained and growled a lot, especially when he was hurt or sick.

She leaned forward and put her hand flat on his chest, feeling the beat of his great heart where he kept his wolves. Her brown eyes, deep and knowing, met his blue gaze, and she saw the wolf looking back at her. She made a decision.

She scrambled to her feet, and headed over to the chiller beside Hardison.

Eliot sighed, closed his eyes and settled back on his cushions, and wondered if he had shattered the precious relationship he had with the little girl for whom he would die willingly.

"Let me help ya there, baby-girl …" Hardison's voice was rough with emotion, and Eliot thought he heard Parker sniff.

Then he heard Lizzie stand up.

"Careful now …" Hardison said, warmth in his soft voice.

Little feet pattered towards Eliot and he sensed her dropping down beside him. Then he felt a gentle shove in his side.

"Eliot?"

Without opening his eyes, Eliot answered.

"Yeah, darlin'?"

"Open," Lizzie ordered.

Eliot cracked open his eyelids to find Lizzie kneeling beside him holding a bowl of thick yoghurt drizzled with luscious local honey, and she had a spoon with a generous mouthful of the sweet offering in her hand and pointed at his mouth.

Eliot did as he was told, and Lizzie very carefully shoveled the dessert into Eliot's mouth, and he savoured the honey-rich creamy stuff with relish. He swallowed and eyed Lizzie.

"Watcha doin','Lizbeth Grace?" he asked with a puzzled smile.

Lizzie grinned at her best friend and guardian.

"I'm feeding my good wolf," she said.

 _Finis_


End file.
